"It's all wrong," she muttered,--"oh, it's far wrong! Ther' 's One could
make them 'like. Not me."
She stroked her father's head once, and then let it go. Holmes glanced
out, and saw the sun was down.
"Lois," he said, "I want you to wish me a happy Christmas, as people
do."
Holmes had a curious vein of superstition: he knew no lips so pure as
this girl's, and he wanted them to wish him good-luck that night. She
did it, laughing and growing red: riddles of life did not trouble her
childish fancy long. And so he left her, with a dull feeling, as I said
before, that it was good to say a prayer before the battle came on. For
men who believed in prayers: for him, it was the same thing to make one
day for Lois happier.
METHODS OF STUDY IN NATURAL HISTORY.
IV.
In presenting Classification as the subject of a series of papers in
the "Atlantic Monthly," I am aware that I am drawing largely upon the
patience of its readers; since the technical nature of the topic renders
many details necessary which cannot be otherwise than dry to any but
professional naturalists. Yet believing, as I do, that classification,
rightly understood, means simply the creative plan of God as expressed
in organic forms, I feel the importance of attempting at least to
present it in a popular guise, divested, as far as possible, of
technicalities, while I would ask the indulgence of my readers for such
scientific terms and details as cannot well be dispensed with, begging
them to remember that a long and tedious road may bring us suddenly upon
a glorious prospect, and that a clearer mental atmosphere and a new
intellectual sensation may well reward us for a little weariness in the
outset.
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